you guys know what the problem with humanity is?
somewhere along the line we got too good at pattern recognition.
we noticed that cause led to effect, and we ascribed meaning to that. the meaning is made by humans. we are meaning-ascription machines. we are the only thing in the universe (that we know of) capable of ascribing meaning to things. without us, meaning does not exist. there is no purpose; things just happen. it is up to us to decide what is important and what isn't, not because things actually are important but because things are important to us. we are the arbiters of meaning simply because we are the only thing capable of comprehension of meaning.
but the act of the ascription of meaning only works in our own perspective. perspective is everything, and it itself is inherently meaningless. we cannot ascribe meaning to anything outside of our realm; we cannot curl upwards, or escape the closed system of humanity. our culture, our emotion, the human experience, the perspective of man. these things are not inherently meaningful. we must give them meaning for them to be meaningful.
why is something meaningful? modern art is "meaningful" because of symbolism and other nonsensical things. sounds like a bunch of bosshogwash to me. i would like to use the analogy that we are children in the playpen of reality, trapped forever, examining our toys, and there are no parents watching us. the parents would supply meaning, as God does to christians, but there is no god.
i would like to use that analogy, but we aren't even children. we are pool balls, on a frictionless pool table, careening around endlessly, smashing into and bouncing off of each other with no rhyme or reason, enslaved to the laws of physics. selfawareness has given us something "special", but we are not purposed to the duty of meaning ascription. we do it because we desire to recognize patterns.
an accident of the complex, yet determined and simple, evolution of the brain, tricked us into believing we had the ability to look at something and say, "oh yes, that is more meaningful than this other thing. and that thing is more meaningful than this even other thing." and maybe the meaning we ascribe is unique, in that it does not happen anywhere else, but that does not mean that the meaning itself has meaning.
i postulate that everything is meaningless.
what is left? we have only one axiom to drive us forward: happiness is good. i don't know why happiness is good, but i believe it to be so. that is the definition of an axiom; i cannot prove it. i cannot even give any evidence for it. it is simply a starting point for the human perspective. happiness is good. sadness is bad.
is it enough to lead a meaningless but happy life? are the holy moments i experience, sex with the person i love, strokes of brilliance in the activities i partake in, clever hofstadterian riddles, are all of these "different" from ordinary life in my mind because they cross some threshold for the deliverance of happiness? is the meaning that i ascribe to them simply symptomatic of that euphoria? happiness seems to me as empty as ether. purpose is the only substance with any mass. any graveness, any seriousness. but purpose is a fraud.
:/
****in girls, man
e: thanks livejournal
